Cows: A Rumination

American Profile magazine, December 2004
"...a unique, amusing collection that you'll enjoy until the cows come home."


Book Description
Carl Hileman’s engaging and moody infrared photographs reflect the gentleness, individuality and complexity of cows. To salute the modest yet life-sustaining creatures, COWS: A Rumination pairs the thoughts of famous cow lovers through the ages with Hileman’s images in a way that will change the way you think about the world’s favorite ruminant ungulate. Words of bovine wisdom from a herd of notables—all of them, like their subjects, outstanding in their fields—pay homage to the cow in song, story, poem, and proverb. Contemporary contributors include actor Russell Crowe, renowned artist George Rodrigue, author Terry Kay, and country music greats Doug Kershaw and Tanya Tucker. Also featured are classic ruminations from the likes of Robert Frost, Groucho Marx, Frank Lloyd Wright and D.H. Lawrence.


From the Publisher
By turns witty, bittersweet and enlightening, COWS: A Rumination is a love poem to an often-overlooked but essential member of our society.


From the Author
"I wanted to set the cows…apart from the usual comic, even dumb portrayal we often see. My purpose was to make people aware of how important the ‘lowly’ cow really is. I wanted the visual images to elevate the cow in a way that hadn’t been done."


From the Inside Flap
Cows are critical to human civilization. Meat, hide, and even bone are used for everything from food to medicine, car tires to cosmetics. Yet if we think of them at all, it is usually as stalwart landscape features with little more personality than the proverbial fence post. In 2000, photographer Carl Hileman created a traveling gallery exhibit entitled "About Cows" to draw attention to society’s reliance on the animal. To find his subjects, Hileman visited small, independent farms where farmers knew their livestock by name. They often told him personal stories about the cows, and those insights determined how he approached and photographed each animal. The quotes Hileman used for Cows: A Rumination come from historic figures and modern-day celebrities; some are taken from famous literary works and others were written expressly for this project. The diverse voices in these pages, however, are united in their common theme: respect and affection for the unassuming creature who gives every part of herself in exchange for nothing more than a simple patch of grass and shade from the midday sun.


About the Author
Carl Hileman is an award-winning artist, photographer and songwriter who lives in a home he built for himself on the border of the Shawnee National Forest in Tamms, Illinois. He holds degrees in art and photography from Southern Illinois University and operates his own art studio dedicated to painting, photography and graphic design. A true jack-of-all-trades, his photographs and illustrations have appeared in several books including Dancing at the Harvest Moon, A Country Music Christmas, and The Christmas Note, co-written by Cathie Pelletier and Grand Old Opry star Skeeter Davis.


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